Saturday, 21 March 2015

Armies Army- Russian Empire

I finished the first 8 figures from Armies Army Russian Empire range yesterday. I love these sculpts, they paint up very easily, striking the perfect balance of interest and simplicity to keep plowing through them with minimal fuss!

One secret to getting through a lot of figures quickly is a small number of colours. These only have 3 main colours on them, so the process is very simple. Long time readers (well done for enduring the huge breaks in transmission) will know I'm not known for doing a lot of tutorials, due to basic laziness. But rejoice, a brief one follows!

Steps 1 and 2, base colours and Strong Tone wash

As you can see above, I painted in all the base colour before proceeding. This is an approach I use when employing an all-over wash, something I have adopted recently. I went with Army Painter Army Green for most of the figure, with Vallejo Khaki for webbing, boots and gloves, and P3 Ironhull grey for guns and gas masks.

When dry, an all-over wash of Army Painter Strong Tone is applied sloppily with a flat brush. While wet, I quickly dab the point of a damp brush into any places the wash has pooled too much, to draw some of it out.

When that is dry, I do some pin-washes. This is a fancy way of saying painting just some wash onto the areas it requires, instead of all over the figure. On these guys I went over the grey areas with some Citadel Badab Black wash (any black wash or even diluted ink would be OK) to darken them some more.

After that, each area was highlighted with it's original colour, then again just on the edges with the original colour plus some white. I eyeball the mix, but it's probably about 20% white to colour. All done!

Almost. It's been a while since I did military figures, and I felt like adding some extra detail. The back of the leader's helmet got a chevron, then I tried a little graffiti on a few other helmets. It proved a little beyond my skill, so I stopped at what you see here. I think it may help me distinguish the soldiers when I start playing the new revised Fivecore campaign.

Tricky helmet detail

This last part really pushed the limits of my eyesight... And my iPhone 4s camera. I think I'm going to need short-focus glasses at some stage, or maybe one of those magnifying visor things I've avoided for so long.

There's another batch at stage 2 sitting on my coffee table, alongside some Enemy Unknown. After that I think I've run out of bases again... Time for another Em-4 bases/brushes order!

Wow, this is a late reply... Sorry! I use a light grey most of the time now. I use cheap hobby acrylic for undercoating, not regular miniature paint. I find black is often useful, but white less so. Grey seems to take the lowest number of coats to get a solid colour.